Mailchimp the new email autoresponder that ruins your email list

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Planning on building an email list? You might want to think twice before using Mailchimp unless ruining your email list and spending money on an ad that Mailchimp controls is your goal.

Mailchimp is a email autoresponder that has been around since 2001. Despite that fact, their program has not experienced any improvements, and recently their program has began to ruin list building campaigns.Mailchimp is also the only email autoresponder that charges customers for technical support. Move on from that fact, and now they have started to suspend legitimate accounts.

Mailchimp is the autoresponder to blow your list building campaign. True Story Told.

Recently on another site that I have been working on for some time I decided to use Mailchimp as a autoresponder to see what the hype about mailchimp was. First I was not impressed with the dashboard, the processes to go through to set up campaigns and the lack of their tools working. (If you need to move an email in your campaign to send at a different time you cannot even though Mailchimp says to drag it in place, it doesn’t work). But even with all that I figured free was hard to beat. I was wrong. I use this autoresponder on another site has treated me very well.

After all my hard work in setting up the site and adding my campaigns in Mailchimp, and getting some legitimate opt ins, I received an email today from Mailchimp saying that my account was suspended. See the image.

The message I received stated that my account was suspended for Terms of Service Violation and states that their abuse detection monitor detected the violation. I should note that Mailchimp only provides their TOS after a violation and not before.

I read the Terms of Service to make sure I did not miss anything and I did not. I also checked to see if any of the opt ins had unsubscribed or reported me for abuse and they did not. I reviewed the campaign emails and did not find anything on them that could be offensive, I mean these are people who seen a page and agreed to enter their information to communicate with me. In spite of receiving their permission, Mailchimp still suspended my account. While reviewing everything I was unable to find any violation of the Terms of Service, any abuse, or offensive material.

Using Mailchimp for an email autoresponder will ruin your email list and cost you time and money!

Certainly it is reasonable for Mailchimp to expect their Terms and Conditions are followed. However, what can a customer of Mailchimp do when their own T&C (Terms and Conditions) is not being violated.

I searched Google to see what the issue could have been. I was a bit surprised by the many stories of this issue found online. It is clear that setting up a Mailchimp account will only cost you money and waste your time. I read on their Facebook where Mailchimp asked a question in an ad…Mailchimp is_____________? I noticed that a gentleman who posted a comment saying no good had his comment from the ad removed. He went on to speak of this same issue and stated that he had done nothing in the program and received the same email.

So when you are looking for an email autoresponder you really need to do your homework. Certainly a business owner doesn’t want to waste time setting up a campaign and typing all the emails and paying for ads to get opt ins to find out their account is suspended with no explanation.

When it comes to the best autoresponderI recommend this company here and that is that. They will ask where you received your list from when you import contacts, but opt in contacts should not be a problem to reveal their source.

What else I discovered about Mailchimp recently that may or may not disturb you.

Mailchimp sends spam. Without your opt in or agreement to send email to you they do it anyways. I understand you sign up for an account with Mailchimp and provide your email address. But there is no opt in to receive communications from them. This is spam. The FTC is clear about spam and how opt ins must be handled. Likewise the FTC is clear about policies that you must place on your site. For those reasons, I believe it is incumbent upon me as a consumer of Mailchimp to contact the FTC and notify them. I have been accused of a terms and conditions violation yet, I have not been provided those until after I supposedly incurred the violation, and 2nd that I have received spam email that I did not agree to receive and that is a violation of the US Can Spam Act.

There are plenty of great companies in the autoresponder business that will not tamper with your email list, and that will not spam you. You are building your list to make money and provide your content to your subscribers. Mailchimp has seriously cost business owners and entrepreneurs time and money and has no explanation for their actions.

Before you appeal, consider reading the complaints of unanswered appeals. it will save you the time in sending your appeal to Mailchimp. The FTC also requires a support email address be given on consumer products, yet Mailchimp doesn’t have one.